Hostage to Pleasure

With her note, she’d set that very event in motion. Then she’d cashed in every favor owed to her and put psychic safeguards in place to protect Keenan against recapture through the PsyNet. But now Keenan was gone—she knew that beyond any shadow of a doubt. And no Psy could survive outside the Net.

Yet, another part of her reminded her, the DarkRiver leopard pack had two Psy members who had survived very well. Could it be that Talin McKade’s friends were cats? That supposition was pure guesswork on her part as she had nothing on which to base her theory or check her conclusions. She was under a psychic and electronic blackout, her Internet access cut off, her entry to the vast resources of the PsyNet policed by telepaths under Councilor Ming LeBon’s command. So she, a woman who trusted no one, would have to trust the sniper had spoken true, and Keenan was safe.

Head still ringing from the shearing off of that inexplicable bond, she sat absolutely frozen for ten long minutes, getting her body back under control. No one could be allowed to learn that she’d felt the backlash, that she knew her son was no longer in the PsyNet. She shouldn’t have known. Every individual Psy was an autonomous unit. Even in the fluid darkness of the Net, where each mind existed as a burning psychic star stripped of physical limitations, they encased themselves in multiple shields, remaining separate.

There were no blurred boundaries, no threads tying one consciousness to another. It hadn’t always been that way—according to the hidden records she’d unearthed in her student days, the PsyNet had once reflected the emotional entanglements of the people involved. Silence had severed those bonds—of affection, of blood—until isolation was all they were . . . or that was the accepted view. Ashaya had always known it for a lie.

Because of Amara.

And now, because of Keenan.

Keenan and Amara. Her twin flaws, the double-edged sword that hung over her every second of every day. One mistake, just one, was all it would take to bring that sword crashing down.

A door opened at her back. “Yes?” she said calmly, though her mind was overflowing with memories usually contained behind impenetrable walls.

“Councilor LeBon has called through.”

Ashaya glanced at the slender blonde who’d spoken. “Thank you.”

With a nod, Ekaterina left. They knew not to speak treasonous words within these walls. Too many eyes. Too many ears. Switching the clear screen of her computer to communications mode, she accepted the call. She no longer had the ability to call out. The lockdown of the lab had been ordered after the children’s escape, though officially, Jonquil Duchslaya and Noor Hassan were listed as deceased—by Ashaya’s hand.

However, she knew Ming was suspicious. In lieu of torture, he’d shut her inside this plascrete tomb, tons of earth above her head, knowing that she had a psychological defect, that she reacted negatively to the thought of being buried. “Councilor,” she said as Ming’s face appeared on-screen, his eyes the night-sky of a cardinal, “what can I do for you?”

“You’re meant to be having a visitation with your son this week.”

She focused on regulating her pulse—an aftereffect of the sudden disconnection from Keenan. To carry this plan through to its completion, she had to remain cold as ice, more Silent than the Council itself. “It’s part of the agreement.”

“That visitation will be delayed.”

“Why?” She had very little power here, but she wasn’t completely under Ming’s thumb—they both knew she was the only M-Psy capable of completing the work on Protocol I.

“The child’s biological father has asked to offer him specialized training. The request has been granted.”

Ashaya knew with absolute certainty that Zie Zen would never have taken that step without consulting her. But knowing that didn’t tell her whether Keenan was dead or alive. “The delay will complicate the training I’m giving him.”

“The decision has been made.” Ming’s eyes turned obsidian, the few white stars drowning in black. “You should focus on your research. You’ve made no significant progress in the past two months.”

Two months. Eight weeks. Fifty-six days. The period of time since the children’s escape . . . and her effective burial in the Implant lab.

“I’ve conclusively solved the problem of Static,” she reminded him, dangerously aware of the growing tightness around her rib cage—a stress reaction, another indicator of the chinks Keenan’s sudden disappearance had made in her psychological armor. “No implant would work if we were constantly bombarded with the thoughts of others.” That was what the Council intended for the PsyNet—that it become a huge hive mind, interconnected and seamless. No renegades, nothing but conformity.